


Home and Heart

by SweetPages



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Notebooks, Cryofreeze, Cryosleep, Fruit salad, Hypnosis, M/M, Memory gaps, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Wakanda, trips down memory lane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 14:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6808399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetPages/pseuds/SweetPages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Those years we were growin’ up and we had no idea…we were just figuring things out…learning how to be us. Do you think we can do that again?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home and Heart

The first time it happens, it’s almost painful.

There’s the blinding light, and the frostbitten feeling, everywhere. The cold that has seeped throughout, and the panic he feels rising in him that makes him want to scream already, to cry. He knows he can’t though, the tears will be too cold, will turn into frost on his cheeks. And he won’t be able to later, in front of them. He hasn’t since those first few months, when he still didn’t know what was happening to him.

He braces himself, tries to quell the urge to run (he won’t make it far), or fight (that never works either), or faint (he’ll only wake up to pain).

But when he opens his eyes, he is there.

* * *

“How was it?”

“A little disorienting,” he replies, peeling away a piece of orange and savoring the taste of it. “How long was I in?”

Steve bobs his head a little, considering. “Almost five months.”

He stops, mouth open, the next piece of orange remaining poised in his hand as he stares at his best friend. “Five…Steve, that’s five _minutes,_ to me. Did you find something?”

Steve shakes his head, guilty and refusing to look up at him. “No. Just thought you could use a break.”

He shakes his head, mumbling, “That _is_ my break.” The next piece of orange tastes just as sweet, and he wonders if it should.

Later, he and Steve walk through palace gardens with flowers and trees and birds he’s never seen before. The air is warm, and slightly humid. He stands in a patch of sunlight for twenty minutes.

Steve joins him, and Bucky wonders how he can keep his dark jacket on in the heat.

“How are things now?”

Steve shrugs, hands in his pockets. His hair is golden and one of the brightest things Bucky’s seen all day. “Better, maybe. I don’t know. They’re all out, at least.”

“There is that,” Bucky agrees, taking in all of the scenery. He never dreams when he goes in, and he used to be glad he didn’t. Now he hopes maybe some of this will seep in, somehow. Maybe if he thinks of it when he goes under it’ll stay there.

“Sam wanted to punch me,” Steve says then, and he almost laughs.

“Well, I’d punch you too.” He thinks he actually might, if his friend kept getting him into trouble. Oh wait.

“What is it?” Steve watches, no doubt aware that something’s coming back to him.

He stares at the ground for a few seconds, trying to remember it right. “It was spring, I think. 1931.”

“A lot happened in spring in 1931,” Steve replies with a little smile. Bucky shares the expression, but shakes his head.

“No, this is one of the first things you think of.” Steve looks at him with a little more attention. “You kidnapped Johnny Carpenter,” he says, and it doesn’t take anything for Steve to remember, his face immediately becoming that same thing it’d been when Bucky was getting yelled at by Johnny’s mom.

“When I snuck him into a game? C’mon, Buck, you know I thought he couldn’t afford to go. He gave me those big, sad brown eyes. You remember the ones.” Bucky does, but he says no anyway. Steve shrugs it off. “ _And_ we were up against the Giants. That was a great game,” Steve says, more to himself now. Bucky knows it was a great game, because he heard all about it after. He didn’t get to see the whole thing though, with Johnny’s angry mother to deal with.

“You left me there and went back in, you jerk!”

Steve’s laugh is like a punch. Knocks him off-balance when it happens, and makes him forget what he was thinking of. Something in him clenches when he tries to remember when he’d last heard it, and his mind comes up with several instances, none of them a sure thing, but all of them feeling like a different lifetime.

“You okay?” There’s some concern in Steve’s voice that suddenly puts him in the moment again, and he replies automatically.

“I _would_ be okay if you hadn’t almost gotten me jailed.”

Steve’s grin lets him know that he still isn’t the least bit sorry. “Hey, you should’ve left when you saw Johnny’s mom coming.”

“I didn’t see her coming, I was kind of tryin’ to watch our team. But I saw your face comin’ out of the washroom when she was chewing me out and threatening to get the cops.”

“Yeah, well I should’ve known Johnny was lying.” Steve replies, giving him a smile he somehow knows isn’t sincere. “Sorry about that pal.”

Bucky knows this feeling he’s having. It’s one that he’s definitely experienced before.

“You’re a real piece of work,” he mutters, arms crossed over his chest. When he looks over at Steve, he doesn’t seem offended, or amused. There’s something there he saw earlier, when he’d first come out of his sleep. That same quirk of the lips, and the soft raising of blond brows.

His chest feels off, and his mind immediately craves distance, urges him to find some excuse.

“Maybe we should go back in,” he says, and when that look dims, it drives him mad a little, because now he wants it back.

* * *

The second time it happens, he wakes up remembering the last time, and his hopes are fulfilled when he opens his eyes.

* * *

Steve chokes on his food a little when he asks, and Bucky is so glad he did.

“ _Bucky_ , I…we never…no.”

“So what was the deal then?” Steve is flushed at the topic of conversation, and in that moment Bucky realizes he remembers what fondness feels like.

“We just…we went on a few dates, and it wasn’t…” he trails off. Bucky watches him wave his hands as he looks for the words.

“Dating not like it used to be?” he offers, and Steve huffs a laugh.

“You’d know about that better than I would.”

Bucky grins at that. “Yeah I would, wouldn’t I?”

Steve shakes his head, but he knows that the other likes his cockiness, just pretends not to. He’s discovering that he knows these things with each interaction they have, like he's uncovering some intrinsic knowledge he's always had. When Steve smiles, he feels happy too, but only if it’s the _right_ smile, because there are some that mean one thing, and other ones that mean something entirely different. When Steve looks troubled (although he doesn’t seem to ever stay that way for very long when Bucky is looking), it ranges on a scale. His mind supplies him with _‘Not so bad’_ to _‘Very sad, not good’._ Sometimes Steve will think, and he can guess correctly if he’s reminiscing or pondering something in the moment.

Right now he’s thinking. Bucky guesses that it’s a memory. _  
_

“Remember that summer you started dating Catherine Smith?”

He quickly gets over the little ‘ping’ of success he feels at guessing correctly, and replies with “No”, because he doesn’t.

Steve smiles a little. “Yeah, well…you dated her for two whole months, then you broke up with her. Broke her heart.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky replies, choosing between some oversized grapes and what looks to be a cross between a mango and an apple. He doesn’t know why there’s always a feast when he gets woken up, but he can’t say he doesn’t appreciate it.

He knows without looking that he’s on the receiving end of a disapproving stare, but he pays it no mind, instead picking up one of the grapes and popping it into his mouth.

“This was…kind of like that. It just-“

“Why did I break up with her?” Bucky asks, picking up another grape.

“Why? Uh…” Steve looks uncomfortable again. “Well, you told me that you liked her, and someday you thought you could even settle down with her, maybe…but I guess she wasn’t what you really wanted."

His eyes search Steve as the other starts to pay more attention to his food. He knows that if he doesn’t ask, he won’t learn more about this. “What did I want?”

Steve is quiet for a moment, then looks up with a familiar teasing smile. “Well you were so doll-dizzy back then, it was hard to tell.”

Bucky snorts.

Later, before he goes back in, he gets a long hug. He hopes he dreams of it.

* * *

The third time it happens, it feels like he’s been asleep for ten seconds.

* * *

“I feel like these wake-up calls keep coming sooner,” he states, when he can work his voice again.

Steve smiles at him from where he stands next to the examination table, and gives a little shrug. “Two months this time.”

Bucky raises a brow. “Last time it was three. What, next time is it gonna be a few weeks?”

“Can’t say hi every once in a while? Make sure you’re doing okay?”

“Steve,” he starts, incredulous. “I’ve been asleep a lot longer than a few months in the past. And much as I miss our time together when I’m in there- well, you know, I actually don’t because I can’t think, but.” He stares up at the bright lights, then looks at Steve’s hair. “I can’t be brought out ‘til it’s safe Steve.”

“I’ll make sure it’s safe,” he starts, but Bucky shakes his head.

“You can’t, it’s not, and it’s not _gonna_ be if someone doesn’t want it to. You remember last time.”

He must look sad, because Steve suddenly looks desperate. “T’challa is here, and he has security everywhere-“

“He was there too. And there was security, I just-“ He draws his lower lip between his teeth.

“Sorry Buck…you want to go back in?” He looks up and catches the apologetic expression on Steve. But he looks sad too, and it makes his chest constrict a little because when he goes back in he knows what he’s leaving behind, and that’s the part he never really wants. All this time he’d been thinking that Steve was bringing him out for his own reasons, but he probably needs this just as much.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he states, and Steve nods.

“I know you don’t. I’m trying.” Bucky doesn’t need that earnest look, knows that Steve is telling the truth. “Maybe next time.” Steve smiles a little, and Bucky lets himself be hopeful.

They eat, and then take a walk. They end up on a veranda overlooking one of the biggest waterfalls he’s ever seen, and with the flock of birds flying overhead and the flowers blooming in the trees, Bucky starts to wonder if Steve has the urge to draw it. If he ever draws anymore.

He laughs. “Sometimes. Don’t really have a lot of time for that right now, but yeah. I’ve done some drawing in my spare time these past few years.”

“I want to see them,” Bucky says, and Steve smiles at him, shyly. He thinks the other must not have shown anyone his art since the war.

“Yeah, alright. I’ll bring them next time.”

When they grow quiet, it’s only because Bucky is taking in the scenery. Wakanda is a place he’s never been to before he was welcomed here by T’Challa. It’s breathtaking, and it makes all the places he’d dreamed of traveling to growing up (with some of those places he’d ended up in, at some point), pale in comparison.

Steve speaks again eventually. “Remember the day you got me to skip out on school, and we ended up at the park?”

He takes a moment, letting himself go somewhere far away. Then he’s chuckling to himself and looking up at Steve with laughing eyes. “You mean that day you got so sunburned you peeled for a month?"

Steve grins, but looks away in his half-embarrassment. “Wasn’t a month, jerk. It was your fault anyway.”

“Well, way I figure it, it’s payback for Mrs. Carpenter.”

“Oh-ho, okay. So getting a horrible, _terrible_ sunburn, spending all my dough on ice cream, and getting caught out of school by my mom was payback for you missing one baseball game.”

Bucky only smiles at him, and Steve laughs, shaking his head. “Fine, guess I learned my lesson then.”

They both look out at the view, and although it’s a nice day, the jungle surrounding T’Challa’s home does nothing to remind him of that day at Prospect.

“Why’d you think of it?” he asks, and Steve gives a little shrug.

“One of the best days of my life.”

* * *

The fourth time, he wakes up to a drawing of the view from the veranda taped to the front of the cryo chamber, and he smiles.

* * *

“And if it doesn’t?”

Steve stops, looking back to him. The room has gone silent.

“Then we will have precautions,” replies T’Challa, who doesn’t seem worried. He can’t say the same for Steve.

“What kinds of precautions?”

T’Challa doesn’t take the implied mistrust personally, because he understands that it’s precautions Steve doesn’t trust, not him. Bucky isn’t sure he trusts them either, but he feels like they’re the best option right now.

“The kind that will keep everyone safe, including sergeant Barnes.” Steve seems mollified by the answer. Bucky can’t keep himself from thinking about everything that could go wrong.

“How do you know it’ll be enough?"

Steve looks like he wants to say something immediately, but T’Challa speaks first.

“Bucky, if it’s not, I will take you down myself.”

They don’t eat until later this time, because Steve shows Bucky some of his art.

“And this one’s Wanda practicing in the training room at the Avenger’s compound.” He slides it over, and Bucky’s eyes move from one drawing to the next. They all have the same style, but he can tell what mood Steve was in based on what the subject is. He studies the sketch of Wanda carefully, taking in her profile, and her smile as she raises a beam in the air with her power.

“You care about her,” he states, eyes meeting Steve’s. “You’re proud of her.”

“I know you didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her, but if you knew her, and knew how far she’s come you’d be proud too.”

Bucky smiles. “What about this-“ he starts, and then catches something sticking out from underneath the pile. He removes it, and sets it on top. At first it’s only familiar, and then it’s like he’s there again as his mind gives him the colors and smells and sounds that go with the sketch of the grocer on Atlantic Avenue. “I’ve been here,” he states. “Mr. Harley’s.”

The buildings on either side of it are there, but he looks at their fronts, and their signs, and something is off.

“Yeah. Drew that a few days ago when I was thinking of the time you got a job there.”

“It was my first job,” he replies, then shakes his head. “You got it wrong, though.”

“What?” Steve leans closer, brow creased into such a familiar look that Bucky swears they’ve been here at least a hundred times before.

“This wasn’t a drugstore,” he says, finger resting on the building to the left. “It was a cigar shop, remember? And this,” he says then, finger moving to the other side. “was a corner store. Sold shoes. Allan’s, I think.”

“Oh,” he hears, and when he looks over Steve is concentrating hard on the picture. Bucky understands that look. He thinks he must have it all the time, because he knows that Steve is filling in the blanks, trying to recall things that have left him.

“Yeah, and the streetcar ran outside, and across the way there was a tavern we only went to a couple of times.”

Steve’s brow furrows. “Didn’t really like that one. Got in a fight there.”

Bucky wants to laugh, but feels his lips pull to one side instead. “Pal, you got in a fight _everywhere_.”

Before he goes back in later, Steve tells him more about what might happen next time.

“We think it’s gonna work, Buck. We got all the best people agreeing on it.”

“You one of those?” he teases, and Steve smiles softly. He doesn’t talk for a minute, but Bucky doesn’t know what to do besides be torn between going back to sleep right away and staying here and talking.

He chooses the latter, because he needs to make Steve understand.

“You know I trust you. It’s just that I can’t trust myself.”

Steve looks up at him, a little helpless but stubborn all at once. “You’ve always been there for me. I’m gonna be here for you.”

“I know you are,” he assures, only hesitating a second, and only because of himself. Steve would rip up the earth for him, would topple governments. He just doesn’t know if he wants him to anymore. “I’m just not the same.”

“I know. But neither am I,” Steve says, and Bucky smiles and exhales a laugh.

“Yes you are. If you were any more the same you’d be old Lady Liberty.”

“You know they’ve renovated her about a hundred times,” Steve replies smartly, but Bucky won’t have it.

“That doesn’t count. Though you could use a few renovations, up here.” He taps his head. “Always getting you into trouble.”

Steve laughs softly. “You still think so, huh?”

“Well you still don’t seem to use it very often,” he mumbles, looking off at nothing in particular.

“I think I do just fine,” he hears, and he knows Steve is starting to get that defensive tone he’d always had when Bucky started accusing him. Some things may have changed, he thinks, but a lot of it really has stayed the same.

“If you did I wouldn’t be here right now,” he says. He doesn’t bother to look over, not even when there’s a long silence afterward.

“I’m trying-“

“I _know_ you are, but-“

“-because you’d do it for me.”

Bucky stands there in silence and Steve looks at him. “You’ve done it before. Those times I was sick, or beat up. You took care of me Bucky.”

“This isn’t the same,” he replies, eyes catching on the empty space to his left as he looks down.

“Nothing is. But we’re still here,” Steve says, and Bucky knows it’s against his better judgement, but he lets his eyes meet his friend’s to see all the honesty there. “You still have me.”

When they’re ready for him, he goes over to the chamber, but before he gets back in Steve hugs him again. Something feels…there’s a thing he thinks could be yearning as they pull apart, but Bucky can’t be sure, hasn’t felt this since…has he felt this before?

“Maybe next time you wake up I’ll have another picture for you. It could make you remember something.” Steve is smiling a little, so Bucky mimics it.

“That’d be nice,” he says, and it’s true. If he can wake up to a memory of their home then he can pretend he’d been dreaming of it, and that would be the nicest thing. “Is there anything you want me to remember?” he asks, thinking of vague brick buildings that need signs, and faces he knows must have names.

Steve takes a breath, like he hadn’t been expecting that question. Bucky doesn’t understand why he looks the way he does then, but Steve quickly changes it to another little smile, then sticks his hands in his pockets. “I think you’ll get there, at some point.”

He almost doesn’t want to ask, because suddenly there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “And if I don’t?”

The smile in front of him strains around the edges. “Then we’ll make new memories, if that’s what you want.”

At first he wants to say no, because he can’t leave this place until he knows it’s safe. Every time he gets out it’s a strange mix of joy and paranoia, both of them uncomfortable, but at least the second is familiar. He doesn’t know if he should be able to feel the first.

Then, his mind argues with itself, and as he looks at Steve he thinks of the sight of him when he first leaves his cold sleep, and the way it feels to talk with him and sometimes laugh. The way his hair looks in the light.

“Yeah. I want that,” he replies, and Steve looks at him with such relief that he feels it in himself.

* * *

 The fifth time, everyone seems to be there, and there’s so much to take in, but his eyes quickly land on Steve. He looks worried, but he’s smiling anyway.

* * *

The precautions stand around the edges of the room, all in black. They watch him closely behind dark glasses, and although Bucky can’t see weapons he knows they’ll have them somewhere. He isn’t afraid, rather, he actually feels grateful for them. If he is a little fearful, it’s only because he’s worried the precautions might fail.

The woman in the middle of the room sits in a modern chair and smiles at him kindly. He sits in front of her and they talk. It’s only them in the room, and the precautions. Steve wanted to come in, but Bucky said no. Steve would be sitting right next to him, and the precautions are around the edges of the room.

He and the woman speak, and she says that her name is Dr. Okoye. She tells him that this time, she’ll only give him one word, and he won’t know which one it is because they’ll be having a normal conversation. After that they talk about the weather, and then how much he likes what he’s seen of Wakanda. They talk a little about his time with Steve and what they do together when he’s not asleep. Then they talk about Bucharest, and where else Bucky has lived, and which one was his favorite.

Two hours pass, and then Dr. Okoye smiles and tells him she’ll see him again in the evening.

Steve is there when he gets out, and they take their food out onto the veranda.

“How’d it go?”

“’Dunno,” he replies, berry juice sticky on his fingers. “I couldn’t tell what she was doing. Seems like we just talked.”

Steve nods. “T’Challa said that’s the way it would be. You sure you don’t want me in there with you?”

He looks over, and that’s a mistake, because if ever there was a face that could look like a begging puppy's it's Steve’s. He steels himself and looks back out at the waterfall.

“Yeah Steve. I’m not safe yet.”

He doesn’t ask again after that.

Later, Bucky goes back in and talks to Dr. Okoye, who gives him a device and something to listen to it with. It’ll only play while he’s in deep sleep, she says, and when he wakes up it’ll be to the live sounds of the jungle outside. He wonders briefly if he can ask them to change it to the sounds of 1940’s Brooklyn, but then realizes they probably don’t have a recording of that.

When he sleeps that night, in a bed larger than any he’s slept in before, with sheets whiter than he thinks he’s ever seen, it’s alone. Steve is in the room next door, and he wonders if his bed is against the wall, or on the far side. He also wonders how long it would take to get to him.

As his mind goes to rest he puts the device on and lets it run. It’s just white noise, at first, and he doesn’t know how it will realize he’s asleep, but before he can think too hard about it, he’s out. When he wakes up it’s to the sounds of the jungle, just like Dr. Okoye promised. He doesn’t feel any different, not in any pain, so if this is supposed to be doing something to his mind he doesn’t know if it’s really working.

A few days later, Steve leaves to follow a lead on something that might actually rid his mind of trigger phrases, instead of creating new ones to negate the old. The four days he’s gone are annoyingly boring. Annoying because Bucky has had plenty of days without Steve before and he’d always found something to occupy his time with. But now things are boring.

So he tries not to smile too much when Steve returns, especially since the other seems much less hopeful than when he’d left.

“Sorry,” he says, but Bucky hadn’t been putting too much faith into it anyway. “I got you these, though.”

He’s handed a notebook, one of his own, and he notices the large backpack Steve is carrying. “How many did you read?”

Steve shakes his head, putting the pack down on the floor in front of Bucky. “None.” He sits across from him on the white carpet, legs folded just like Bucky’s.

Bucky opens the backpack, and sifts through it. “You can read…this one, if you want,” he says, selecting a notebook with a little “B” etched in the bottom right-hand corner of the cover. “It’s stuff from before the war.”

“Maybe…” Steve says, and takes it from him. He sets it gently to the side before pulling out a little paper bag from the inside of his jacket. He hands it to Bucky. “Got you these, too, in case you wanted to keep going.”

Bucky opens the bag and peers down inside. He counts six new notebooks. “Thanks.” He glances up at Steve with a little smile, and then reaches in and grabs the books. They all look similar to the ones he’s been writing in, except one already has an etching on the cover. “2017…”

“You said you wanted new memories. Thought maybe you’d want a place to keep those, too.”

He breathes in, and the smile on his face is grateful. “Thanks,” he says again, softer.

“No problem,” Steve replies, then picks up the notebook Bucky’d given him, and holds it in both his hands. “How are things going?” He looks at the cover, thumb tracing over the B.

“Good, I think. No one is telling me anything.” It’s something that’s a little frustrating, and it makes him a little anxious, but he does trust T’Challa enough. Knows that he’s doing this for his own reasons.

“I don’t think they can. Otherwise they’re afraid it might not work.” Steve’s fingers skim over the labels sticking out of the notebook, but Bucky knows he won’t read it in front of him.

“What have they told you?”

Steve looks up with a sorry smile. “Everything.”

Bucky breathes out, relieved. “Good.”

* * *

“Mr. Barnes? Bucky, can you hear me?”

He can hear her, Dr. Okoye. But she’s far away, and he’s somewhere deep. He’s stuck inside of his own mind, but his body is relaxed. He hasn’t felt this relaxed in…ever. He can’t speak, or move, and he wonders how he’s even breathing.

“If you can hear me, do not panic. You are in a form of hypnosis. You won’t be able to move until I bring you out of it, but you aren’t in any form of danger.” He wants to nod and signal that he understands, but he can’t even lift his pinky. It would be alarming, if his body could react to any of the anxious thoughts in his mind.

“In this state, you are not in control of your body. It will be in control of you. You will enter this relaxed state until you fall asleep, or until someone is sure you are no longer a threat and gives you control again.” The idea of not having control wasn’t something that used to bother him, because it was something that he learned not to have. But now he wonders if he’ll ever truly get it back.

“This isn’t a permanent solution,” Dr. Okoye continues, and he wonders if he’d managed to speak his thoughts out loud. “This method will only be known by a few people who will use it should the situation require. But we will also continue to search for a way to undo phrases that were already introduced to your mind before.” He can feel her touch his arm. “You won’t have to be afraid forever, Bucky.”

When he leaves the room, he still feels a little out-of-touch with his movements. It’s like his body still isn’t his own, even though Dr. Okoye had allowed him a few moments to move around after she’d brought him out of the hypnosis. He almost bumps into Steve, standing just outside the door.

“Oh, hey. Did it work?”

He blinks. “Yeah. It did.”

The smile Steve gives him makes him wish he could draw half as well as the other.

“I’m just…” he trails off, and Steve watches him, waits for him to continue. “…what if more words isn’t the answer? What if someone else learns the words?”

“Only three people know them right now,” Steve replies. He doesn’t need to ask if Steve is one of them. “But just in case, I called in a favor from a friend.”

He hadn’t noticed the little black box in Steve’s hand, which makes him wonder if it’s really only his body the hypnosis affects. Steve opens it, and Bucky stares at the little syringe inside, filled with a clear liquid.

“What is it?”

“Tetrodotoxine B,” Steve says. Bucky stares at him.

“English.”

Steve’s lips quirk upward. “It’s what Fury used to stay alive,” he says, and Bucky’s eyes grow wide. Steve had told him about Fury’s survival, but he’d been more preoccupied with the thought of him alive than of how he’d done it. “If you aren’t in control anymore, I’ll shoot you with this,” he begins, and when one of Bucky’s brows quirk upward Steve’s expression quickly becomes unamused. “or stick you with it. I’m not _that_ bad of a shot,” he mumbles, and Bucky tries not to smile.

“It’ll slow your heart rate down and you’ll pass out for at least two hours,” he finishes, and Bucky stares at the syringe again, a little worried.

“At least?"

“Well, while you were in there we tried it out on me and I was out for about an hour. We ran some more tests, and we think that because you’re like me, but the serum isn’t as strong, then you should be out for around two.”

Bucky still doesn’t feel totally convinced, but even if it’s just for an hour, it’d be enough to get him restrained and away from other people. He nods. “Okay.”

“That’s two safeguards,” T’Challa says, walking down the hall toward them. His sudden presence doesn’t alarm Bucky anymore, now that he’s gotten to know him. It’s a good thing, since alarm doesn’t typically sit with him well. “And I’ve made sure this place can act as a third.” He looks into Bucky’s eyes as he speaks. “You won’t be a danger to anyone, especially not while you are here.”

“Thank you,” he says, still in disbelief and having some doubt, but sincere nonetheless. T’Challa nods, then looks to Steve. “If you need me, Captain, you may contact one of my assistants. They can notify me immediately.”

“Thank you your highness. We’re in your debt.”

T’Challa shakes his head. “None of us is in the debt of the other. We are friends.” With that, he leaves them, and Bucky looks at Steve with a little smile.

“Captain?”

“I’m not going to correct the king of Wakanda.”

Later that night, before they go to bed, they try some of the Wakandan liquor that T’Challa gave them as a gift. They can’t get drunk off of it, but it still tastes amazing, spicy and nutty, but smooth and crisp. Bucky drinks most of it, but Steve still has his fair share, and his lips get wet with it as they sit out on the veranda with a full moon in view.

That familiar tug in his mind is there when he rises to go to bed at the end of the night and Steve looks up at him. It’s a flicker, but then it’s gone, and Bucky knows he can’t coax it, that it’ll come to him in time. He hopes it’s a good memory.

* * *

He wakes up remembering something that’s definitely not in his notebooks.

When he goes out to the sitting room, one they spend a lot of time in, Steve is there, reading Bucky’s notebook. He’s almost finished. It’s not surprising, since Bucky’s written in it that one the least.

“What part’s that?” he asks, placing himself down at the other end of the couch.

Steve replies without looking up. “This one’s about you and Rebecca. The time you chewed a guy out for dumping her.”

“Oh yeah,” he replies, thinking of it. “Barney Matherson. Lil jerk.”

Steve huffs a laugh. “I’m sure you showed him, Buck.”

“Yeah I did.” He smiles to himself, then looks over. Steve is still reading, so he watches him in silence.

Eventually, the need to say something is too great, so he swallows and then asks, “How many girls did I go steady with?”

Steve still doesn’t look up, instead makes a thoughtful face as he turns the page. “’Dunno, you went out on a lot of dates though. Spent plenty of time dancing.”

“Funny thing is,” he says, “I remember a lot of faces, but none of their names.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Aside from that Catherine Smith you didn’t really date anyone for too long.”

Bucky sits in silence again, thinking. “We went out on dates.”

Steve looks over, then. “What?”

“We went out together, on double dates,” he replies, and Steve’s shoulders settle.

“Oh. Yeah, we did. A few times, I guess.”

Bucky nods, and looks over at the notebook. He hesitates another second, then finally wills himself to ask. “I ever teach you how to dance?”

He gets a laugh for that, and his eyes snap to Steve’s mouth, pulled upward. “You tried. Sometimes, after we’d been drinking a little, so it wouldn’t hurt so bad when I stepped on your feet.”

“You always had to lead,” he replies softly, now remembering a specific time he’d given him a lesson when they’d come back from a date and Steve had bruised up Molly Cartwright’s bright red heels.

“Well that was kind of the point, right?” Steve says seriously, staring at him. Bucky looks back at him strangely.

“What?”

Bucky feels as if he’s under a microscope, with the way Steve’s gaze is honed on him. “Of teaching me how to dance with girls.”

“Oh,” Bucky replies, under his breath. “Yeah, guess it was.”

Steve watches him another moment, then he hears the book shut and it’s placed on the table in front of them. Steve stays there, leaned over for a long time, before he settles back against the couch again. “Y’know…I remember one time the best. Think it must’ve been the fourth or fifth time you tried to teach me. It was hot out, and we tried to cool down with a couple of beers, but by the time we started drinking them, they were already warm.”

Bucky remembers that taste, and the way they’d finished off the beers anyway without complaint, but he doesn’t say anything.

“You started teaching me The Lindy the time before, and you were tryin’ to help me do it slower, so I could learn the moves easier.”

Steve still kept stepping on his feet, but then maybe drinking hadn’t helped Steve’s coordination all that much.

“I really started to get the hang of it, after a while.”

And he really had. Bucky remembers him, grinning, hair a little damp from the hot day and the exertion. His cheeks were red, and Bucky’s sure the beers helped with that. He remembers thinking about getting Steve some booze during the winter, because that glow looked healthy and there was no doubt it was warming him up, even Bucky could feel it. Steve was warm in his arms, and when he laughed Bucky could feel all of it. He made a joke about untying Bucky’s shoelaces with his feet. Then he looked up at him.

He can feel Steve looking at him now, but he turns away.

“Buck?”

He’s quiet, just like that day, after. Steve moves closer to him.

“Bucky?” He feels a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t move.

“When I remember things,” he starts, voice low, “sometimes it’s because of stuff I see, or hear, or smell. Some things are easier to remember. Usually it’s because they’re more recent. Or because they’ve been on my mind a while.” He draws his lip between his teeth, releasing it when it starts to hurt.

“Most of the notebooks are bad things, because…they came to me first. So I wrote those down, because I felt like I should remember them. Then one time…” he laughs a little, gets a smile. “…I smelled rosewood at a market in Skopje and I couldn’t stop thinking of my grandmother.” Rosewood oil, which she always wore. It would make her entire house smell like her. It’s the first memory from before Hydra that he’d written down, in the notebook Steve is reading. “Then those memories started coming more often. So I started writing them down. Sometimes they just came when I slept, which was nice, because other times I’d wake up and the memories were so…” he motions, not able to find the words to describe the bloody scenes that fill his mind. “…I could barely write them down.” Steve’s hand hasn’t left his shoulder, but he’s thankful for that. He looks at it.

“I don’t know why I remember some things later that others. I remembered that I used to smoke cigarettes before I remembered my mother’s name, and I didn’t remember that you almost died jumping over an explosion in a Hydra base until Siberia, or that you always wanted to go up to Niagara until I saw that picture you drew when I woke up.”

His eyes move to Steve’s face, which is so easy to read. It’s always been easy to read.

“I didn’t remember I kissed you until I woke up this morning.”

Nothing is said after that for a long time. There’s only the change in Steve’s expression, a tiny smile, and then tentative elation. Then he’s being pulled into a hug, and he can’t help himself from hugging back. But he still needs Steve to know.

“I don’t know…if it can be like it was…”

“That’s okay. That’s okay, Buck. We’ll figure it out,” Steve replies, hugging him tighter. There are still things he doesn’t remember, so much of them he’s missing, and he says so. He feels Steve’s smile against his neck before he moves to speak. “You said you wanted to make new memories, so we can do that. Maybe while that’s happening, you’ll remember some old ones too. And if you don’t, then that’s okay.”

Bucky just breathes for a minute, takes this in.

“I still don’t remember all of home,” he says eventually, thinking that if they never let go of each other it’d be alright. “Even though I’ve been there. A lot of it’s gone.”

Steve’s voice is quiet as he replies. “Yeah. I know.”

He shifts, and holds tighter. Closes his eyes. “But…like this. With you right here. I feel like I remember. I feel like it’s all there, like I already have it. Is that okay, you think? That when I close my eyes, I see everything we used to? The cars, the people, the buildings… The back alley fistfights and those colorless films. Those years we were growin’ up and we had no idea…we were just figuring things out…learning how to be us. Do you think we can do that again?”

It’s a long time before Steve replies. When he does, he pulls back to do it, and Bucky notices his eyes are red-rimmed and a little wet. His own are stinging, so he thinks they must look the same.

“If there’s one thing I’ll always put faith in pal, it’s us.”

* * *

The first time it happens, it isn’t really the first time at all.

Steve pulls away slowly, just a fraction of an inch, with his hands still holding Bucky’s face. His mind goes back to the first time, and a few times after that, when Steve’s face was close to his and his lips felt soft and warm. Cracked and cold. Wet and intoxicating. But really, it always felt the same.

He moves in again, because he can, and Steve is smiling as their lips touch. He can feel his heart pick up, and his blood run quicker, but all the while his mind is settling and he thinks of nothing but this.

They don’t part again for a long time, and when they do they don’t go very far. Bucky wonders now if he’s going to have trouble with not touching Steve, and with the way both of Steve’s hands haven’t let go of him he thinks the other might have the same problem.

 _Or not a problem_ , he thinks as Steve moves in again.

* * *

A year later, the bookshelf they have in the corner is entirely filled, and Bucky wonders if they have room for another one. Not for the old memories, which he sometimes reminisces over, although some remain in a trunk he keeps out of sight. They need a new one for the ones he keeps making, mostly with Steve, but sometimes without, though now the ones he does make with him are accompanied by sketches so those end up being his favorite.

He finishes writing his most recent one, Steve sitting next to him on the couch with their sides touching. Outside, it’s summer, so the windows are open and the breeze sweeps in. It flutters the corner of the page he’s working on, and Steve reaches over to place his finger on it while Bucky finishes.

When he does, it gets placed on the table next to him, and then he settles against Steve. He’s still watching something on the television, but Bucky hadn’t been paying attention, still isn’t, as he places his head on Steve’s shoulder and starts to fall asleep next to his warmth. His head is lightly jostled as the other laughs, and his lips quirk into a tired smile.

Before he’s completely under, he feels a hand settle over his, and he knows that when he wakes up things will be okay. Because when he opens his eyes, he’ll be there.

**Author's Note:**

> Civil War gave me a writing bug and I couldn't just ignore it, guys.
> 
> My WIP is still very much in progress but I HAVE been, well...making progress on it. So know that it is still a thing and alive and that I haven't given up on it (not in the slightest!). That will probably be next because it really needs to be, and then after I have more works in store (some already written), so please stay tuned for those!


End file.
